perceptions of female managers

39

Perceptions of Female Managers in Male-Dominated Industries:

Effects of Gender Rarity, Performance, and Diversity Justification

Shefali Patil1

New York University

Abstract

Two experimental studies were conducted to measure the effects of contextual and situational factors on employees’ perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors to-ward female managers in traditionally male-oriented jobs. Study 1 manipulat-ed the contexts (gender rarity and diversity justification) of female perceivers through the mediating effect of social identity, while Study 2 manipulated the contexts (gender rarity and performance) of female and male targets. Results for Study 1 indicate that: (a) rare female perceivers are more likely to per-ceive female managers as being dominant (a stereotypically male trait) and adopt these traits, (b) rare female perceivers are also more likely to believe that they have to try harder to prove themselves in the organization, and (c) female perceivers in companies with legal compliance diversity justification are less likely to encourage prospective females to join the company. Results for Study 2 indicate that companies with female targets in positions of gender equality were assumed to have affirmative action hiring policies more often than companies with female targets in positions of gender rarity – this provides evidence for future research about the types of organizations in which rarity evokes assumptions of preferential hiring. Overall, these studies contribute to the debate over the use of affirmative action policies by providing insight into

1 Shefali Patil is a recent alumna of the undergraduate Stern School of Business, New York University, with a double major in Management & Organizations and Marketing. This research paper was completed while she was a participant of the Senior Honors Program 2008. She would like to sincerely thank her advisor, Dr. Steven Blader, Associate Professor of Management, for his guidance, keen insights, strong enthusiasm, and honest advice throughout this research process. He was the first one to welcome her to the world of academic research, and she is very grateful to him for his continued efforts and encouragement. She would also like to thank her mother and father for their never-ending care and dedication, her brother, Akhil, for his love and companionship, and her roommate and close friend, Belig Borjiged, for her help with these studies and unflagging friendship. She greatly appreciates the constant support from the aforementioned people. Comments are welcome at [email protected].

THE MICHIGAN JOURNAL OF BUSINESS40

the unintended consequences of their implementation. Results indicate that increasing female representation in male-typical professions is not enough to counter negative perceptions and behaviors toward traditionally underrepre-sented minorities – equal gender representation must be coupled with a culture that believes that diversity is intrinsically advantageous, in order to mitigate some of the effects of implicit sex-based discrimination in the workplace.

41Perceptions of Female Managers in Male-Dominated Industries

IntroductionThe 1960s in American history marked the beginning of substantial

changes to the organizational workplace with respect to gender equality. Dur-ing those years, government and society worked to decrease discrimination against women in the workplace to create fair hiring policies and to provide equal employment opportunities. Some of these measures include Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which barred discrimination in employment on the basis of sex and race, the Equal Pay Act, which made it illegal for employers to pay women less than men in the same jobs, and Title IX of the Education Amend-ment, which banned sex discrimination in schools. These efforts have had a major social and economic impact, as women’s participation in the workplace has increased significantly. The most influential change, however, has come from the increase in women’s participation in traditionally male-dominated in-dustries, such as finance, science, and law, and from the increase in the number of degrees held by these women in preparation for these jobs. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, “almost three-quarters of women were employed in management, professional, sales, and office occupations in 2006, compared with about half of men.”2 These professional fields are perhaps among the most powerful, lucrative, and highly regarded in the job market, and changes in these fields have created an advantageous opportunity for many women.

While there has been a dramatic decrease in explicit sex-based discrimina-tion, discrimination still continues in a less apparent yet almost equally harm-ful form. This implicit sex-based discrimination prevents women from fully benefiting from high-earning positions. Women, especially at the managerial level, continue to face numerous obstacles pertaining to matters, such as com-pensation, promotion, and representation, even years after the initial impact of the movement. For example, a woman still continues to earn seventy-three cents for every dollar that a man makes in the same job and position.

One of the factors that underlie this particular form of sex-based discrimi-nation involves the concept of perception. In organizational behavior theory, perception is defined as the way in which people observe, view, and interpret others and events around them to create a sense of order for their environ-ment.3 Perception greatly affects the attitudes employees have of others and themselves, as well as the decisions they make within an organization. Biases, or systematic tendencies, often distort these perceptions, leading to inaccurate assessments and evaluations. With regard to women in the workplace, this gender-based biasing and stereotyping is one of the factors that prevents full

2 United States Department of Labor. www.dol.gov, Accessed November 5, 2007.3 Jennifer M. George & Jones, G.R. Understanding and Managing Organizational Behavior. 6th ed.,

Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2005.


attainment of gender equality in male-dominated organizations. This paper, through the execution of two experimental studies, aims to

examine the surrounding contexts that cause differences in perceptions. Study 1 focuses on the context of female perceivers in the workplace and their per-ceptions of female targets (the ones who are perceived). Study 2 focuses on the context of female targets and the consequent perceptions of both male and female perceivers.

Study 1 Context of a Female Perceiver and Its Impact on Her Perceptions of Female Managers, and Attitudes and Behaviors in the Organization

BackgroundOne of the prevalent forms of implicit sex-based discrimination that oc-

curs in today’s workplace involves the negative perceptions of female em-ployees by other females in male-dominated organizations. For example, in an experimental study on interviews, it was found that female recruiters evaluated male applicants more favorably than female applicants, while no significant differentiation was found with male recruiters.4 Graves & Powell suggested that this occurred because female recruiters, who were employees of a tra-ditionally male profession, may have seen male applicants as more similar to themselves than female applicants; this perceived similarity affected their assessment of the applicants’ subjective qualifications. Additional phenomena can be found in prominent polls. A Work and Power survey of 60,000 partici-pants conducted by MSNBC revealed that three out of four women expressed a preference to work for a man than a woman.5 Gallup Poll’s annual Work and Education survey revealed that half of all adult women in the United States prefer working for a man (compared to 45% of all men).6 These results are perhaps unexpected, as one might assume that women would prefer female bosses who could potentially be a source of help and advice for lower level fe-male employees. The most surprising implication of this survey is that women themselves, who are fully aware of the disadvantages in the workplace, may be contributing to sex-based discrimination.

Some of this behavior can be explained by the mediating effect of social

4 Laura M. Graves & Powell, G.N. “The Effect of Sex Similarity on Recruiters’ Evaluations of Actual Applicants: a Test of the Similarity-attraction Paradigm.” Personnel Psychology, 48 no. 1 (1995), 85-98.

5 Eve Tahmincioglu. “Men rule — at least in workplace attitudes.” MSNBC. March 8, 2007. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17345308/, Accessed December 2, 2007.

6 W.W. Simmons. “When it Comes to Choosing a Boss, Americans Still Prefer Men.” Gallup Website, http://www.gallup.com/poll/2128/ When-Comes-Choosing-Boss-Americans-Still-Prefer-Men.aspx, Accessed January 14, 2008.


identity.7 Through this, people categorize and group themselves based on gen-der, race, ethnicity, profession, etc.8 The consequences of taking on a particular identity involve both positive and negative behaviors.9 A female recruiter’s preference for male applicants can indicate a distancing from the female iden-tity and a stronger identification with the male group, a higher-status group in the male-dominated organization. The extent of a woman’s identification with a female social identity may therefore be related to perceptions and behaviors toward other females.

HypothesesIt is hypothesized that the context or environment that a female perceiver

is in may influence the extent to which she identifies with a female social iden-tity, and thus her perceptions of other women. Two specific contextual factors that may influence how females react to other females are gender composition and justification of diversity measures. Parallel to the methods used in previ-ous studies,10 both these contextual factors “prime” females by making their female identity salient, which may, in turn, influence the following perceptions she has about a female manager: the perceived competency, the perceived in-terpersonal hostility, the perceived communality (stereotypically female char-acteristics), the perceived agenticism (stereotypically male characteristics), the likeability of the female manager, and the satisfaction working under the female manager. Perceptions of the female manager can influence the per-ceiver’s behaviors and attitudes as well. Some of these include the likelihood she will seek the female manager out as a mentor and adopt her behaviors, the likelihood she will join a women’s mentoring/networking program, her adop-tion of stereotypical masculine and feminine traits, and her general beliefs about female managers. These are all behaviors that can potentially affect the future success of the female in the organization.

Pertaining to the first proposed contextual factor, gender composition, it is predicted that women in a situation of gender rarity (she is the only female within the organization) would identify less with the female identity because of her male-dominated surroundings. This distancing would make her the most likely to perceive female managers negatively. On the other hand, women in a situation of gender equality (equal number of women relative to men) would

7 Henri Tajfel. Human Groups and Social Categories. London: Cambridge University Press, 1981. 8 Priscilla M. Elsass & Graves, L.M. “Demographic Diversity in Decision-making Groups: The

Experience of Women and People of Color.” The Academy of Management Review, 22 no. 4 (1997), 946-973.

9 Laura M. Graves & Powell, G.N. “The Effect of Sex Similarity on Recruiters’ Evaluations of Actual Applicants: a Test of the Similarity-attraction Paradigm.” Personnel Psychology, 48 no. 1 (1995), 85-98.

10 Margaret Shih, Pittinsky, T.L., & Trahan, A. “Domain-specific Effects of Stereotypes on Performance.” Self and Identity, 5 (2006), 1-14.


self-identify more with the female identity, decreasing negative perceptions towards other women:

Hypothesis 1a: Women in situations of gender rarity will have more negative perceptions of a female manager, adopt less advantageous behaviors, and hold more negative attitudes than women in a situa-tion of gender equality.The second proposed contextual factor aims to define the culture of the

organization that the perceiver is in. Although culture is very broad, intricate, and hard to define, a sense of it can be revealed through an organization’s jus-tification/framing of diversity recruitment. There are two mainstream justifica-tions that are currently used: the first is for business reasons, thereby imply-ing that diversity gives the company a competitive advantage, and the second is commonly referred to as affirmative action programs, which are perceived to be implemented in order to comply with government regulations.11 Prior research has shown that members of an organization have more positive at-titudes toward a program that is justified through competitive advantage rather than affirmative action.12

It is expected that, under the competitive advantage justification, women would be more likely to identify with the female identity because the female group would bring them higher status; it is, in essence, self-enhancement iden-tification13 within an organization that values diversity. However, in an orga-nization with affirmative action policies, or a culture of hiring females for the sake of avoiding legal penalties, a woman is perhaps more likely to move away from the disadvantaged female identity and embrace other identities.14

Hypothesis 1b: Women in an organization with affirmative action diversity measures will have more negative perceptions of a female manager, adopt less advantageous behaviors, and hold more nega-tive attitudes than women in an organization with competitive ad-vantage diversity measures.The interaction of the gender rarity and diversity justification measures

provides an interesting complication in the matter. It is expected that becau-

11 O.C. Richard & Kirby, S.L. “Women Recruits’ Perceptions of Workforce Diversity Program Selection Decisions: A Procedural Justice Examination.” Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 28 (1998), 183-188.

12 David L. Kidder, Lankau, M.J., Chrobat-Mason, D., Mollica, K.A., & Friedman, R.A. “Backlash Toward Diversity Initiatives: Examining the Impact of Diversity Program Justification, Personal, and Group Outcomes.” International Journal of Conflict Management, 15 no. 1 (2004), 77-102.

13 Charles Stagnor & Thompson E. “Needs for Cognitive Economy and Self-enhancement as Unique Predictors of Intergroup Attitudes.” European Journal of Social Psychology, 32 (2002), 563-575.

14 Steven Fein & Spencer, S. J. ”Prejudice as Self-image Maintenance: Affirming the Self Through Derogating Others.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73 (1997), 31-44.


sea woman would identify with the female group in both gender equality and competitive advantage justification, this combination would be the “best case scenario,” with women having more positive perceptions of female manag-ers. However, rarity and affirmative action justification are predicted to be the “worst case scenario,” with strong distancing from the female identity.

Hypothesis 1c: Women in an organization with gender rarity and af-firmative action diversity measures will have more negative percep-tions of a female manager, adopt less advantageous behaviors, and hold more negative attitudes than women in an organization with gender equality and competitive advantage diversity measures.Finally, it is hypothesized that the effects of these two contextual factors

are also dependent on the personal beliefs of the perceiver, particularly with respect to her beliefs about the separation of gender roles. In prior research, egalitarian attitudes have been proven to affect other similar behaviors, such as a woman’s likelihood of engaging in nontraditional occupations.15 Follow-ing this pattern, it is likely that women with highly egalitarian values who believe less in the separation of gender roles would not distance themselves as much from a female social identity as those with low egalitarian values. This measure can also have an effect on women’s reactions to other women in the workplace.

Hypothesis 1d: Women with less egalitarian views about gender roles will have more negative perceptions of a female manager, adopt less advantageous behaviors, and hold more negative attitudes than women with more egalitarian views about gender roles.

Method

Participants and DesignThe participants of Study 1 were 80 women, between the ages of 18 to

34. The vast majority were undergraduate students from various universities across the United States, with some from universities in Australia, New Zea-land, Singapore, South Korea, India, and Israel. They were recruited through online networking sites. All participants were entered into a raffle for cash prizes.

The design of Study 1 was a 2 x 2 factorial design with rarity (only males in the organization, or three females and three males) and company justifica-tion of diversity measures (affirmative action or competitive advantage) as the

15 J. Chatterjee & McCarrey M. “Sex Role Attitudes of Self and Those Inferred of Peers, Performance, and Career Opportunities as Reported by Women in Nontraditional vs. Traditional Training Programs”. Sex Roles, 21 (1989), 653–69.


manipulations. Participants were randomly assigned one of these four condi-tions.

Procedure and Stimulus MaterialsAll participants were emailed a link to one of four online surveys.Each survey began with an introduction containing a general, irrelevant

purpose, which stated that the study explores the experiences of new hires and management’s responsibilities of facilitating these experiences. This was followed by instructions that made the participant aware that she was going to read a new-hire information letter and instructed her to imagine that she had just accepted a highly desirable job offer from the company. The latter part of these instructions was added to mitigate any pre-conceptions that the participant might have had about financial companies or finance-related jobs, considering some were not from business-oriented schools.

Participants were then directed to the following page that contained the new-hire information/orientation letter for a fictitious mid-sized financial ser-vices company named SIL Financial Services, Inc. [A fictitious company was used to (1) prevent any irrelevant biases/perceptions that a participant may have had about a real company from influencing results and (2) avoid unnec-essary affiliations of diversity justification and hiring procedures with a real company. Although the company was fictitious, all efforts were made to make this letter as realistic and believable as possible].

The letter began by personally welcoming the participant to the com-pany by providing background information on SIL Financial and describing its culture as supporting a collegial environment that provided opportunities for professional growth.

The two experimental manipulations, justification of diversity measures (presented as “Employee Diversity at SIL Financial”) and gender rarity (pre-sented as an introduction to the participant’s team), appeared after the back-ground and culture information. These two parts were the only sections of the information letter that were unique to each condition. These manipulations will be discussed in detail in the following section.

Finally, the new-hire information letter introduced the participant to the managing director of her team, a fictitious female. She was given strong quali-fications in order to “create” the image of an objectively competent, well-qual-ified manager. After the new-hire information letter, participants were directed to the questionnaire.


Experimental Manipulations (1) Company Justification of Diversity Measures: Participants were given

a paragraph in the new-hire information letter under the heading, “Employee Diversity at SIL Financial,” which justified the hiring of female employees and other minorities as either a sole compliance of affirmative action policies set forth by the Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) guidelines (affirmative action justification condition) or a voluntary adoption of minority recruitment to increase the competency of the organization (competitive advantage justifi-cation condition). Wording of these justification measures were modeled after the framing of diversity recruitment measures created by Richard & Kirby, 1998. Both of these paragraphs specifically addressed the hiring of women, as well as the hiring of other minorities.

The affirmative action justification stated: SIL Financial operates in compliance with the affirmative action re-quirements set forth by the Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) guidelines for minority representation in the workplace. We follow the mandate to hire minorities, especially women, who have been consistently underrepresented in the finance industry. SIL has thus implemented an affirmative action program to seek, hire, and pro-mote minority group members.

The competitive advantage justification stated:SIL Financial recognizes that today’s client base has become in-creasingly diverse. In order to have a competitive advantage in this type of market, we believe it is important to have employees, espe-cially women, who reflect this diversity and understand this client base. Although SIL does not have an affirmative action program, it has voluntarily implemented a diversity initiative to seek, hire, and promote minority group members.

(2) Gender Rarity: Rarity was manipulated by changing the gender com-position of the participant’s team that she would be “joining.” Participants were given a paragraph in the new-hire information letter, under the head-ing, “Your Team at SIL Financial,” that introduced them to the team and its fictitious members. The paragraph either contained all males (the participant would be the only female employee in this team) for the rarity condition, or three males and three females (to give the impression of gender equality) for the no rarity condition. Included with each name were the member’s position


(Vice President, Associate, or Analyst), highest educational degree and the degree-granting institution, and hometown.

Sex Role Egalitarian ScaleThe egalitarian scale used in this study was adapted from the Tradition-

al-Egalitarian Sex Role Scale (TESR)16 and was intended to measure partici-pants’ beliefs in the equality of gender roles. Ten out of the twenty items were selected from the scale, particularly those that were most relevant in today’s times. It appeared near the end of the study. A list of these scale items can be found in Appendix A.

Dependent MeasuresThe first half of the questionnaire measured participants’ evaluations of

the female managing director. It contained seven parts. The first five measures, which consisted of competency, interpersonal hostility, communality, agenti-cism, and liking, were compiled from Heilman & Okimoto, 2007. Each was posed with the question, “I think the Managing Director will be:” The com-petency measure consisted of three 7-point Likert Scales: competent (not very competent-very competent), effective (not very effective-very effective), and productive (not very productive-very productive). The interpersonal conflict scale consisted of five 7-point Likert Scales with the following adjectives: abrasive (not very abrasive-very abrasive), pushy (not very pushy-very pushy), untrustworthy (not very untrustworthy-very untrustworthy), manipulative (not very manipulative-very manipulative), and selfish (not very selfish-very self-ish). The communality scale consisted of four 7-point Likert Scales with the following adjectives: supportive (not very supportive-very supportive), under-standing (not very understanding-very understanding), sensitive (not very sen-sitive-very sensitive), and caring (not very caring-very caring). The measure of agenticism consisted of six 7-point Likert Scales with the following adjec-tives: strong (not very strong-very strong), assertive (not very assertive-very assertive), tough (not very tough-very tough), bold (not very bold-very bold), active (not very active-very active), and dominant (not very dominant-very dominant). The final scale measured liking with one 7-point Likert Scale with the adjective likeable (not very likeable-very likeable).

The next part measured how the participant thinks she would feel work-ing under the female managing director. This was asked in two questions: the first was a 7-point Likert Scale (not very satisfied-very satisfied) correspond-ing to the question, “How satisfied do you think you will be working under

16 Knud S. Larsen & Long, E. “Attitudes Toward Sex Roles: Traditional or Egalitarian?” Sex Roles, 19 (1988), 1-12.


the Managing Director?”, and the second was a 7-point Likert Scale (not very happy-very happy) corresponding to the question, “How happy do you think you will be working under the Managing Director?”

The final part of this section measured how the participant thought she would behave towards the female managing director. In five 7-point Likert Scales (not very likely-very likely), the questionnaire asked, “How likely do you think you will be to do the following with this Managing Director…”, with regard to the following actions: seek her out as a mentor, adopt her behav-iors, network with her, learn from her, and ask her for work-related advice.

The second half of the questionnaire measured the participants’ intended behaviors and attitudes in the organization. The first measured the participants’ willingness to join women mentorship and networking programs. The question stated that SIL Financial planned to implement the following three programs: General Mentorship (all lower-level employees are assigned upper-level em-ployees as mentors), Women’s Mentorship (lower-level female employees are specifically assigned upper-level female employees as mentors), and Women’s Networking Society (group in which female employees could network with other female professionals). Participants rated on a 7-point Likert Scale (not very likely-very likely) how likely they were to join the above-mentioned pro-grams.

The next measure dealt with behaviors that the participants were likely to adopt. These included six adjectives from the BEM Sex-Role Inventory,17 three from the masculine items list (aggressive, dominant, and strong-willed) and three from the feminine items list (compassionate, understanding, and communal). Participants were posed the question, “As an employee at SIL Financial, I think I will become,” and they rated responses for each adjective on a 7-point Likert Scale (not very-very).

The following measure contained all six statements that comprised the Stereotyped Beliefs about Women Managers Scale,18 with a 5-point Likert Scale (strongly disagree-strongly agree). This scale was intended to measure the beliefs in the disparity between the performance evaluation differences of managerial men and women. Appendix B contains this scale. The only chang-es made to each statement were that it was personalized for SIL Financial. For example, the first item read “Women managers at SIL Financial…” The ques-tionnaire then asked how confident the participant was in being successful at SIL Financial, with a 7-point Likert Scale (not very confident-very confident).

17 Sandra L. Bem. “The Measurement of Psychological Androgyny.” Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 42 no. 2 (1974), 155-162.

18 Sarah Moore Grunberg, L. & Greenberg, E. “Development and Validation of the Stereotype Beliefs about Women Managers Scale.” Institute of Behavioral Science Research Program on Political and Economic Change, 2004.


The final measure gauged the participant’s behavior towards other prospective women. The question posed a scenario where a prospective employee had ap-plied for an analyst position at SIL Financial. No information was given about her qualifications or competency in order to measure the reactions to a female without unnecessary interference. The only information was that her name was that of a typical female and that she had applied for a job. Participants were asked on a 7-point Likert Scale (not very likely-very likely), how likely they were to: “talk up” SIL to her, recommend her for hire, and discourage her from joining SIL.

Results

Data Analysis Overview A two-factor Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), with alpha of 0.05, was

conducted for each dependent measure in the following manner: Components comprising each of the perceived competency (α = 0.79), interpersonal hostil-ity (α = 0.70), communality (α = 0.90), and agenticism scales (α = 0.82) were combined, consistent with correlation calculations from previous research19,20,21; Averages were calculated for the Stereotyped Beliefs About Women Managers Scale. The higher the average, the more the adherence to the stereotypical be-liefs; all other dependent measures were individually analyzed for significant differences in variance among the four conditions.

Analysis of the predictive power of the egalitarian scale on the dependent measures involved three different regression analyzes: (1) Average scores for each participant were calculated and standardized through the assignment of a z-score. The higher the score, the more egalitarian the participant was on the scale. These standardized scores were regressed against all dependent mea-sures. (2) An interaction term was calculated between the standardized egali-tarian scores and the rarity effect, with rarity being assigned a value of zero and no rarity being assigned a value of one. This term was regressed against all dependent measures. (3) An interaction term was calculated between the standardized egalitarian scores and the justification effect, with affirmative ad-vantage justification being assigned a value of zero and competitive advantage being assigned a value of one. This term was regressed against all dependent measures.

19 Madeline E. Heilman & Okimoto, T.G. “Why are Women Penalized for Success at Male Tasks?: The Implied Communality Effect.” Journal of Applied Psychology, 92 no. 1 (2007), 81-92.

20 Madeline E. Heilman, Block, C.J., & Martell, R. “Sex Stereotypes: Do They Influence Perceptions of Managers?” Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 10 (1995), 237-252.

21 Madeline E. Heilman, Wallen, A.S., Fuchs, D., & Tamkins, M.M. “Penalties for Success: Reactions to Women who Succeed at Male Tasks.” Journal of Applied Psychology, 89 (2004), 416-427.


A significant finding was defined as having a p-value less than or equal to 0.05 and a marginal finding was defined as having a p-value greater than 0.05 but less than 0.10.

Perceived Competency of the Female ManagerThe three adjectives comprising the competency scale (competent, effec-

tive, and productive) were combined into one scale: correlation between com-petent and effective was 0.64, correlation between competent and productive was 0.48, and correlation between effective and productive was 0.84.

Analysis of variance for this competency scale revealed no significant ef-fects for diversity justification F(1, 71) = 0.28, p > 0.10, rarity F(1, 71) = 0.86, p > 0.10, or the justification x rarity interaction F(1, 71) = 0.37, p > 0.10. All participants objectively perceived the female manager as competent based on her qualifications, regardless of their assignment to a particular condition.

Perceived Interpersonal Hostility of the Female ManagerAverages of ratings for the five adjectives (abrasive, pushy, untrustworthy,

manipulative, and selfish) comprising the measure of interpersonal hostility were combined into an interpersonal hostility scale. Contrary to predictions, there were no differences among the four conditions. Analysis of variance for these groups revealed insignificant effects for diversity justification F(1, 71) = 0.55, p > 0.10, rarity F(1, 71) = 0.16, p > 0.10, and the justification x rarity interaction F(1, 71) = 0.03, p > 0.10.

Perceived Communality of the Female ManagerAverages of the ratings for the four adjectives (supportive, understand-

ing, sensitive, and caring) comprising the measure of perceived communality were combined into a single communality scale. Analysis of variance revealed a marginal effect of the diversity justification x rarity interaction variable F(1, 71) = 2.82, p < 0.10, but no effect of the individual rarity F(1, 71) = 0.02, p > 0.10 or diversity justification variables F(1, 71) = 0.49, p > 0.10.

Slightly contrary to predictions, those in situations of gender rarity (where the participants’ gender was salient) were more likely to believe the female manager as communal when affirmative action was used as a diversity justi-fication (mean = 4.24, standard deviation = 0.85) than competitive advantage (mean = 4.01, standard deviation = 0.94). But in situations of no rarity (where the participants’ gender was not salient), participants were more likely to be-lieve that the female manager was communal when competitive advantage was used as a justification (mean = 4.36, standard deviation = 0.99) rather than affirmative action (mean = 3.82, standard deviation = 1.07).


Perceived Agenticism of the Female ManagerAverages of the ratings for the six adjectives (strong, assertive, tough,

bold, active, and dominant) comprising the measure of perceived agenticism were combined into a single agenticism scale, as well as analyzed separately. Analysis of variance of the combined scale revealed no significant effects of rarity F(1, 71) = 0.53, p > 0.10, diversity justification F(1, 71) = 1.47, p > 0.10, or the justification x rarity interaction F(1, 71) = 2.31, p > 0.10. However, there was a significant effect of rarity on the individual dominant trait F(1, 67) = 4.95, p < 0.05, and a marginal effect of diversity justification F(1, 67) = 3.31, p < 0.10.

As predicted, those in situations of rarity were more likely to perceive a female manager as dominant (mean = 5.85, standard deviation = 1.13) than those in a situation of no rarity (mean = 5.21, standard deviation = 1.30). Those whose company’s diversity measures were justified through competitive ad-vantage (mean = 5.80, standard deviation = 1.23) were more likely to perceive the female manager as dominant than those whose company’s diversity mea-sures were justified through affirmative action (mean = 5.26, standard devia-tion = 1.24).

Likeability of the Female ManagerAnalysis of variance of the participants’ likeability of the manager showed

no significant effects of diversity justification F(1, 67) = 1.41, p > 0.10, rarity F(1, 67) = 1.41, p > 0.10, or the justification x rarity interaction F(1, 67) = 0.02, p > 0.10. Contrary to predictions, the perceived likeability of the female manager (mean = 4.57, standard deviation = 0.93) was not affected by the treatment condition of the participants.

Satisfaction of Working for the Female Manager, Intended Behaviors toward the Female Manager, and Likelihood to Join Women’s Mentoring/Networking Programs

Analysis of variance of participants’ inferences about satisfaction F(1, 63) < 4.00, p > 0.10 and happiness F(1, 67) < 3.99, p > 0.10 in working for the female manager was insignificant for the rarity, justification, and justification x rarity interaction effects. Means for intended behaviors toward the female manager (seek her out as a mentor F(1, 71) < 3.98, p > 0.10, adopt her behav-iors F(1, 71) < 3.98, p > 0.10, network with her F(1, 67) < 3.99, p > 0.10, learn from her F(1, 67) < 3.99, p > 0.10, and ask her for work-related advice F(1, 71) < 3.98, p > 0.10) were not significantly different. Finally, means for the par-ticipants’ likelihood to join general mentorship programs F(1, 67) < 3.99, p > 0.10, women’s mentorship F(1, 67) < 3.99, p > 0.10, and women’s networking


F(1, 71) < 3.98, p > 0.10 were insignificant across the three effects. Contrary to predictions, each of the four conditions did not influence the inferred satis-faction of working under the female manager, their attitudes toward her, or the likelihood that they would take part in women corporate programs.

Adoption of Stereotypical Masculine and Feminine TraitsAnalysis of variance for ratings pertaining to stereotypical masculine traits

(aggressive, dominant, and strong-willed) that the participant would adopt re-vealed a significant main effect of rarity on adopting dominant behavior F(1, 71) = 7.40, p < 0.01, and a marginal effect of rarity on adopting aggressive be-havior F(1, 71) = 3.06, p < 0.10. Analysis of variance for ratings pertaining to stereotypical feminine traits (compassionate, understanding, and communal) that the participant would adopt revealed marginal effects of the justification x rarity interaction on adoption of the compassionate trait F(1, 71) = 3.20, p < 0.10 and the adoption of the communal trait F(1, 67) = 3.44, p < 0.10.

Pertaining to the adoption of masculine traits: in cases of rarity, partici-pants were more likely to adopt dominant behavior (mean = 4.83, standard deviation = 0.88) than in cases of no rarity (mean = 4.19, standard deviation = 1.09). Similarly, participants were more likely to adopt aggressive behavior in situations of rarity (mean = 5.00, standard deviation = 0.93) than in no rarity (mean = 4.58, standard deviation = 1.08). Pertaining to the adoption of femi-nine traits: in situations of rarity, participants were more likely to adopt com-passionate behavior when the company used an affirmative action justification (mean = 4.11, standard deviation = 1.02) rather than a competitive advantage justification (mean = 3.44, standard deviation = 1.34). In situations of no rar-ity, however, the opposite was true. Participants were more likely to adopt compassionate behavior when the company used a competitive advantage jus-tification (mean = 4.11, standard deviation = 1.41) than an affirmative action justification (mean = 3.67, standard deviation = 1.46). The intended adoption of communal behavior followed a similar pattern. In cases of rarity, partici-pants were more likely to adopt communal behavior when the company used an affirmative action justification (mean = 4.88, standard deviation = 0.78) rather than a competitive advantage justification (mean = 4.06, standard devia-tion = 1.52). In situations of no rarity, however, participants were more likely to adopt communal behavior when the company used a competitive advantage justification (mean = 4.88, standard deviation = 1.17) rather than an affirma-tive action justification (mean = 4.59, standard deviation = 1.37).


Stereotyped Beliefs about Women Managers ScaleResponses to each of the six statements of the Stereotyped Beliefs about

Women Managers Scale were averaged for each participant and an analysis of variance was conducted. Results showed a significant effect of rarity on the adherence to the scale F(1, 71) = 5.22, p < 0.05 and a marginal effect of the justification x rarity interaction variable F(1, 71) = 3.13, p < 0.10.

As predicted, in situations of rarity, participants were more likely to hold stereotypical beliefs about women in the company (mean = 3.38, standard de-viation = 0.67) than women in situations of no rarity (mean = 3.01, standard deviation = 0.72). Also, as predicted, if the participant is in a situation of no rar-ity, a competitive advantage justification of diversity measures (mean = 2.81, standard deviation = 0.69) can better mitigate the strength of participants’ ad-herence to stereotypical beliefs compared to an affirmative action justification (mean = 3.20, standard deviation = 0.71).

Confidence in Being SuccessfulAnalysis of variance of participants’ confidence in being successful in

the company showed no significant effect for diversity justification F(1, 71) = 0.42, p > 0.10, rarity F(1, 71) = 0.75, p > 0.10, and the justification x rarity interaction F(1, 71) = 0.42, p > 0.10. Contrary to expectations, all participants demonstrated a higher than average confidence (mean = 5.24, standard devia-tion = 1.09) regardless of assigned condition.

Attitude towards Prospective Female EmployeeAnalysis of variance indicated a very strong main effect of diversity jus-

tification on both the participants’ likelihood of recommending a prospective female employee for hire F(1, 63) = 5.01, p < 0.05 and the likelihood of them discouraging the prospective female employee from joining the company F(1, 71) = 6.44, p < 0.05. However, there was no significant difference in means for the participants’ likelihood of “talking up” the company to the prospective female employee for all three effects F(1, 67) < 3.99, p > 0.10.

In situations where the company used an affirmative action justification, participants were more likely to recommend the female employee for hire (mean = 4.72, standard deviation = 0.89) than in situations of competitive advantage (mean = 4.22, standard deviation = 0.87). However, while this was true, they were more likely to discourage her from joining the company with an affirmative action justification (mean = 3.00, standard deviation = 1.07) than a company with a competitive advantage justification (mean = 2.31, stan-dard deviation = 1.24).


Table 1 summarizes all significant and marginal findings from the manipulations:

Table 1: Study 1: Summary of Findings from Effects of Manipulations Rarity Diversity Justification Justification * Rarity Interaction

Dependent Measure M SD F crit F p-value M SD F crit F p-value M SD F crit F p-value

Communality of Female Manager Rarity x A/A n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. 4.24 0.85 3.98 2.82 0.09 Rarity x C/A n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. 4.01 0.94 3.98 2.82 0.09 No Rarity x A/A n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. 3.82 1.07 3.98 2.82 0.09 No Rarity x C/A n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. 4.36 0.99 3.98 2.82 0.09

Agenticism of Female Manager: Dominant Rarity 5.85 1.13 3.99 4.95 0.03 n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. No Rarity 5.21 1.30 3.99 4.95 0.03 n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. A/A Justification n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. 5.26 2.29 3.99 3.31 0.07 n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. C/A Justification n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. 5.79 2.41 3.99 3.31 0.07 n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a.


Adoption of Aggressive Behavior Rarity 5.00 0.93 3.98 3.06 0.08 n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. No Rarity 4.58 1.08 3.98 3.06 0.08 n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a.

Adoption of Dominant Behavior Rarity 4.83 0.88 3.98 7.40 0.008 n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. No Rarity 4.19 1.09 3.98 7.40 0.008 n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a.

Adoption of Compassionate Behavior Rarity x A/A n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. 4.11 1.02 3.98 3.20 0.08 Rarity x C/A n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. 3.44 1.34 3.98 3.20 0.08 No Rarity x A/A n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. 3.67 1.46 3.98 3.20 0.08 No Rarity x C/A n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. 4.11 1.41 3.98 3.20 0.08

Adoption of Communal Behavior Rarity x A/A n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. 4.88 0.78 3.99 3.45 0.07 Rarity x C/A n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. 4.06 1.52 3.99 3.45 0.07 No Rarity x A/A n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. 4.59 1.37 3.99 3.45 0.07 No Rarity x C/A n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. 4.88 1.17 3.99 3.45 0.07


Stereotyped Beliefs About Women Managers Scale Rarity 3.38 0.67 3.98 5.22 0.03 n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. No Rarity 3.01 0.72 3.98 5.22 0.03 n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. Rarity x A/A n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. 3.29 0.59 3.98 3.13 0.08 Rarity x C/A n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. 3.47 0.76 3.98 3.13 0.08 No Rarity x A/A n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. 3.20 0.71 3.98 3.13 0.08 No Rarity x C/A n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. 2.81 0.69 3.98 3.13 0.08


Recommend Prospective Female Employee for Hire A/A Justification n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. 4.72 0.89 4.00 5.01 0.03 n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. C/A Justification n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. 4.22 0.87 4.00 5.01 0.03 n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a.

Discourage Prospective Female Employee from Joining A/A Justification n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. 3.00 1.07 3.98 6.44 0.01 n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. C/A Justification n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. 2.31 1.24 3.98 6.44 0.01 n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. A/A = Affirmative Action; C/A = Competitive Advantage; n.a. = not applicable (for either insignificant data or mismatch of effects and interactions); M = mean; SD = standard deviation


Sex Role Egalitarian Scale and Dependent MeasuresRegression analysis of participants’ standardized gender role egalitarian

score versus dependent measures revealed a significant relationship between egalitarian beliefs and (1) the participants’ perceived satisfaction of working under the female managing director (coefficient = 0.42, p < 0.05) and (2) the participants’ adoption of communal behavior (coefficient = 0.47, p = 0.05). Analysis also revealed a marginal relationship between the scale and (1) the perceived competency of the female managing director (coefficient = 0.31, p < 0.10) and (2) the likelihood of seeking out the female managing director as a mentor (coefficient = 0.27, p < 0.10). Consistent with predictions, the more egalitarian beliefs a female employee holds about gender roles, the more likely she is to have positive perceptions of a female manager, adopt advantageous behavior by seeking her out as a mentor, and hold a more favorable attitude about working under her.

Regression analysis of the interaction variable between the standardized egalitarian score and rarity versus the dependent measures revealed four sig-nificant relationships between egalitarian beliefs and (1) the perception that the female manager is dominant (coefficient = -0.57, p < 0.05), (2) the like-lihood of joining the company’s women’s networking group (coefficient = 0.69, p = 0.05), (3) the intended adoption of aggressive behavior (coefficient = -0.47, p < 0.05), and (4) the stereotyped beliefs about women managers (from the SBWM scale) (coefficient = -0.328, p < 0.05). Also consistent with predictions, in the presence of gender equality, the more egalitarian beliefs a female employee holds about gender roles, the more likely she is to positively perceive a female manager, feel comfortable in joining a women’s network-ing group, and feel less compelled to adopt aggressive behavior. She is less likely to believe in the stereotypical discrepancies in performance evaluations between male and female managers.

Regression analysis of the interaction variable between the standardized egalitarian score and diversity justification versus the dependent measures re-vealed no significant or marginal findings.


Table 2 summarizes all significant and marginal findings from the sex role egalitarian scale:

Table 2: Study 1: Summary of Findings from Effects of Sex Role Egalitarian Scale StdEgal StdEgal x Rarity

Dependent Variable R^2 Coef p-value R^2 Coef p-value

Competency of Female Manager 2.90% 0.3055 0.071 *** *** ***

Agenticism of Female Manager: Dominant *** *** *** 4.30% -0.57 0.038

Satisfaction working under female manager 4.90% 0.4169 0.029 *** *** ***

Seek out female manager as a mentor 2.70% 0.2666 0.081 *** *** ***

Join Women’s Networking *** *** *** 3.60% 0.6946 0.054

Adopt communal behavior 3.40% 0.4673 0.057 *** *** ***

Adopt aggressive behavior *** *** *** 4.10% -0.468 0.045

Stereotyped Beliefs About Women Managers Scale *** *** *** 4.10% -0.328 0.04

StdEgal = standardized z-score for egalitarian score; *** = no significant findings for interaction variable

DiscussionEven though hypotheses 1a, 1b, 1c, and 1d are only partially supported,

these results indicate three very important findings about the effects of rar-ity and diversity justification on female employees’ perceptions of a female manager, choice of behavioral traits, and attitude towards prospective female employees. First, different patterns between rare female and non-rare female situations are clearly identifiable (Hypothesis 1a). The evidence demonstrates a pattern between a female employee’s perception of a female manager and the behavioral traits she believes she needs to adopt in order to be successful in the company. With regard to agentic, masculine traits, women in situations of rarity are more likely to perceive a female manager as dominant and to adopt aggressive and dominant behavior than when she is in a situation of gender equality. This implies that rarity causes them to both believe that higher level female employees who have achieved a high position are more “masculine,”


particularly more dominant, and that they must be “masculine” to achieve similar success. Thereby, they may be choosing to emulate the agenticism that they perceive in the female manager. Gender equality decreases this percep-tion and need. The emulation of this dominant and aggressive behavior can be both favorable and unfavorable for the female employee. It is favorable in the way that stereotypically male-oriented characteristics are commonly be-lieved to be vital for success in managerial positions. Those with more female-oriented characteristics are perceived to be incompetent22,23 and less likely to be successful. However, it puts the female employee in a position where she is easily victimized by the “backlash effect,” a previously studied perceptual bias. This effect holds that employees who are asked to form quick impres-sions of assertive female targets form less favorable impressions because of the very fact that they demonstrate less communal behavior.24 According to gender-based stereotypes, women are expected to behave in a certain manner involving communality (niceness, sensitivity, etc.) rather than male, agentic behavior,25 and any discrepancy between expectations and observations causes negative perceptions. It is thus ironic that the exact dominant and aggressive behavior that a female employee thinks will make her successful (judged by the perception that a successful female manager has this trait) is, in fact, some-thing that can also be detrimental to her success in the organization.

The participants’ perception of a female manager’s communal behavior and their perceived need to adopt communal traits both reflect a similar pat-tern as well, although they are dependent on both rarity and diversity measure justification (Hypothesis 1c). In a situation of rarity, a female employee in a company with a culture of mere legal compliance (affirmative action jus-tification) is more likely to perceive a female manager as communal (sup-portive, understanding, sensitive, and caring) and to believe in the need to adopt this compassionate and communal behavior than a female employee in a company that values the intrinsic nature of diversity. This may be initially counter-intuitive because it is thought that a woman in a condition of rarity and affirmative action policies would be more likely to adopt agentic behaviors, believing masculine traits would lead to success in a company that adopts diversity measures for the sole sake of avoiding legal penalties. Prior research

22 Madeline E. Heilman, Block, C.J., & Martell, R. “Sex Stereotypes: Do They Influence Perceptions of Managers?” Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 10 (1995), 237-252.

23 Madeline E. Heilman & Blader, S.L. “Assuming Preferential Selection When the Admissions Policy is Unknown: The Effects of Gender Rarity.” Journal of Applied Psychology, 86 no. 2 (2001), 188-193.

24 Francis Flynn. “Too Tough, Too Soon: Familiarity and the Backlash Effect.” Revision under review at Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 2007.

25 Madeline E. Heilman & Okimoto, T.G. “Why are Women Penalized for Success at Male Tasks?: The Implied Communality Effect.” Journal of Applied Psychology, 92 no. 1 (2007), 81-92.


has shown that “token” women who belong to work groups with dominant male culture identify more with men.26 But, there is a two-fold consequence of this issue–women in this type of scenario may be well-aware that they will be facing many disadvantages based on their gender and would therefore feel the need to adopt communal behavior in order for the men around them to like and accept them. The mere presence of men around them may also make their fe-male identity very salient to them, pushing them back into stereotypical femi-nine behavior. This is consistent with the “cognition” phase in the experiences of a focal individual in diverse work groups.27 Focal individuals categorize themselves based on features, traits, and behaviors consistent with gender and other salient characteristics28 as well as situational factors (e.g. relative repre-sentation of minority group).29 From here, stereotypical role expectations are internalized by the individual affecting behavior and performance.30 Salient women would thus confine themselves to typical gender role expectations. The major downfall in this is that while they may be more accepted by their male counterparts, perceptions of their competencies take a tremendous hit. Ultimately, in potentially the hardest situation to be in (with rarity and affirma-tive action), women are more likely to adopt traits that will further add to their already disadvantaged position.

There is, however, an even more interesting finding from this evidence: the perception of communality of a female manager and the perceived need to adopt communal traits are nearly the same in the “hardest” situation (rarity and affirmative action) and the possibly “better” situation (no rarity and val-ued diversity). In other words, when there is supposedly less pressure to com-pete with men and the culture of the organization is more competency-based, women may be adopting communal behaviors and falling prey to the same effects of the negative perceptions of their competency. It is important to note, though, that in the latter situation, a company that has significant minority rep-resentation and that places emphasis on the competitive advantage of diversity is perhaps more likely to form a culture where competency is far more valued and traits are less looked upon than in the former situation. In effect, the nega-tive consequences that may result from the adoption of communal traits may not be as severe as those in the former situation.

26 Rosabeth M. Kanter. Men and Women of the Corporation. New York: Basic Books, 1977. 27 Priscilla M. Elsass & Graves, L.M. “Demographic Diversity in Decision-making Groups: The

Experience of Women and People of Color.” The Academy of Management Review, 22 no. 4 (1997), 946-973.

28 Robert G. Lord & Foti, R.J. Schema Theories, Information Processing and Organizational Behavior. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1986.

29 Elsass & Graves, Ibid.30 Margaret Shih, Pittinsky, T.L., & Trahan, A. “Domain-specific Effects of Stereotypes on

Performance.” Self and Identity, 5 (2006), 1 – 14.


The second important finding demonstrates another negative effect of gender rarity: those in situations of rarity are more likely to believe in the performance evaluation discrepancies between male and female managers. In other words, “token” women succumb to the beliefs that they need to con-stantly prove themselves, behave in typically masculine ways, perform better than men, etc. In essence, these women are burdened with the perception that their gender group’s success in the organization would be far more difficult to achieve than that of their male counterparts; this adds to feelings of insecurity, distress, and constant fear that they will not be supported in the company.31 This adds yet another reason to why gender rarity could have detrimental ef-fects on the minority gender. Increasing minority representation in an orga-nization, however, is not the only action that a company can take to decrease these effects. Looking at the interaction between rarity and company diversity culture, it is very visible that with a culture that values diversity and gender equality, these beliefs held by women employees can be mitigated greatly. Company justification of diversity measures can therefore have an impact in decreasing the negative perceptions and feelings that women may have about the evaluative differences between men and women.

These stereotyped beliefs about women managers may also indicate why female employees may prefer male managers to female managers. Consid-ering this evidence is occurring within the context of a finance company, a typically male profession, it is highly plausible that women with more stereo-typed beliefs (in situations of gender rarity) would make other women in the organization an “outgroup” and men an “ingroup.” This formation of ingroups and outgroups, otherwise known as ingroup favoritism,32 is a component of intergroup attitudes. Past research has shown that individuals derive part of their positive self-concept from perceiving ingroups relatively more favorably in comparison to relevant outgroups.33 In an effort to psychologically avoid the perceived disadvantages that women managers have in the organization, female employees may create for themselves self-identification with males and utilize ingroup favoritism towards these males. These beliefs may violate the com-monly held sex similarity paradigm that demographic similarity between two individuals (particularly pertaining to sex) leads to a positive bias because of perceived similarity in attitudes, values, and interpersonal attraction34 (Byrne,

31 Sarah Moore Grunberg, L. & Greenberg, E. “Development and Validation of the Stereotype Beliefs about Women Managers Scale.” Institute of Behavioral Science Research Program on Political and Economic Change, 2004.

32 Marilynn B. Brewer & Campbell, D. T. Ingroup Favoritism and Intergroup Attitudes: East African Evidence. New York: Sage, 1976.

33 Charles Stangor & Thompson, E. “Needs for Cognitive Economy and Self-enhancement as Unique Predictors of Intergroup Attitudes.” European Journal of Social Psychology, 32 (2002), 563 – 575.

34 Donn Byrne. The Attraction Paradigm. New York: Academic Press, 1971.


1971). This finding is ironic in that a female employee in a situation of gender rarity would perhaps need the most help and assistance from other established female employees, more so than those in situations of gender equality – but, she is far more likely to be distracted by perceived gender differences.

The final finding further adds evidence to the conclusion that the way in which an organization justifies its diversity measures can indeed have an impact on female employees’ perceptions (Hypothesis 1b). Diversity justifi-cation is not just a simple statement of organizational beliefs; in essence, an organization is creating a culture that resonates among employees. While the gender composition of a female employee’s team did not have an impact on her attitudes toward prospective female employees, the diversity justification had a very significant impact on the likelihood that she would hire a prospec-tive female employee and discourage her from joining the company. It was initially surprising to see that a female employee was more likely to recom-mend a female employee for hire in the affirmative action condition rather than the competitive advantage condition. But, further analysis suggests the impact that the justification had on the mindset of the female employee – hav-ing absolutely no information about competency or qualifications, she would be following the “rules” of the affirmative action policy and recommending her for hire. When the culture of the company leaned towards valued diversity, however, recommendation was less likely because there was no information about the background of the prospective female and, therefore, it wouldn’t be suitable to hire her just based on her gender. This point is further reinforced by the finding that women under affirmative action policies would discourage the prospective female from joining, possibly attributable to the fact that they felt the policy was unfair. This not only shows the impact that diversity justifica-tion may have on the mindset of female employees, but also the importance for organizations to emphasize the advantages that minority representation can have rather than to simply adopt legal compliance. Competitive advantage jus-tifications may be able to ensure (1) that employees are hired based on compe-tency and qualifications rather than their gender and (2) that women perceive the hiring procedures as fair and are likely to encourage further minority rep-resentation in the organization.

Lastly, it is important to note the role that a female employee’s views on the equality of gender responsibilities play in her perceptions. As expected, the more egalitarian views a woman holds, the more likely she is to view other fe-males as competent, be satisfied with a female boss, seek out a female manager as a mentor, and feel more comfortable adopting typical feminine qualities that she may or may not naturally possess (Hypothesis 1d). But, most importantly, it shows that within a company that has gender equality, egalitarian women are


most likely to take advantage of women-specific activities, such as networking activities, and least likely to adhere to stereotypical beliefs about women. Al-though it is very difficult for an organization to actually change the beliefs of an employee (since these beliefs are based on a variety of other factors such as religion, culture, upbringing, etc.), an organization can work towards ensuring gender equality in an organization, so that women can be in an environment of equality, potentially shaping their beliefs. It is, however, important that an organization justifies gender equality through the intrinsic value of diversity rather than simple legal compliance because of the challenges the latter brings, as described above.

LimitationsThis study does have its limitations, however, and they should be duly

noted. The concluding findings above are based on statistically significant dif-ferences between data points, but it is important to keep in mind that this study was conducted in an experimental context. As can be seen in Table 1, many of the mean (average) scores from respondents are around the 4 to 5 range out of a 7-point Likert Scale. There are two possible reasons for this: (1) The materials did not provide enough information for strong judgments/responses to be made and/or (2) The respondents did not have enough real-life exposure to answer these questions – in other words, the majority of respondents were undergraduate students who most likely did not have experience in corporate situations and were not able to fully “immerse” themselves in the scenario, leading to unsure, middle of the range answers. It may also have been the case that given the highly sensitive nature of the study (which essentially deals with discrimination), respondents, despite the promise of confidentiality, attempted to decipher the “correct” answer, therefore causing a possible disconnect be-tween what they perceived to be an acceptable response and the actual behav-ior they would have exhibited.

Nevertheless, prior academic research in this field and related fields has relied on undergraduate students and similar respondents and has found that they can give some insight into unconscious behavior. After all, these studies essentially tap into the basic psychological motives of implicit discrimination. Even with no hands-on experience, social stigmas and nurturing can influence judgments greatly – the concept of affirmative action, especially, is quite prev-alent in today’s society and already has large influences. The fact that there are statistically significant differences between the two manipulations gives some indication that these social stigmas may exist and could be transferred to real behavior in organizations. Therefore, the significant findings from Study 1 are still reliable indicators of the effects of rarity and diversity justification.


Study 2 Context of a Target and Its Impact on the Perceptions of the Target’s

Performance

Background and HypothesisWhereas Study 1 examines the context of a female perceiver, Study 2

examines the context of the target and effects on perceptions. Another underly-ing factor that is predicted to contribute to implicit sex-based discrimination is attribution bias, or the way in which people explain the causes of one’s own behaviors or those of someone else. There are two main attributions: internal (assigns causes to characteristics of the target) and external (assigns causes to circumstances outside the control of an individual). Examples of internal attributions include competency and skill, while examples of external attribu-tions include luck and chance. When an employee’s successful performance is, for example, attributed to external circumstances (when in fact, it is based on competency), the success may likely go unrecognized and will not be ac-counted for in promotion or delegation considerations.35 The context of a tar-get can heavily influence these aforementioned attributions.

Thirty years ago, academics Howard Garland and Kenneth Price studied attribution biases in the workplace with respect to female managers in tradi-tionally male jobs. Their studies found that both males and females attribute successful performance of female managers to external attributes, while the same success of a male manager is attributed to internal aspects.36 The rea-soning behind this was that traditional gender-based expectations suggest that women are not competent at traditionally male jobs; so, when women manag-ers fail at a task, the very act conforms to expectations and thus would be at-tributed to the lack of competency or other positive internal attributes, whereas deficiencies in the success of a male manager are less likely to be attributed to a lack of competence and are assigned external blame such as bad luck.37 Additionally, studies were conducted by Marsha Jacobson and Walter Koch on how attributions were assigned in the context of affirmative action and per-formance evaluations. It was shown that when employees knew that a female manager was appointed because of gender-based considerations, they were more likely to attribute successes of the project led by the manager externally

35 Jennifer M. George & Jones, G.R. Understanding and Managing Organizational Behavior. 6th ed., Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2005.

36 Howard Garland & Price, K.H. “Attitudes Toward Women in Management and Attributions for Their Success and Failure in a Managerial Position.” Journal of Applied Psychology, 62 no. 1 (1977), 29-33.

37 Ibid.


and failures internally.38 Conversely, if the female manager was appointed be-cause of merit, she received more credit when the project was successful and less blame when it failed.39

Though these studies give insight into the correlation between success and failure of a female manager and the assignment of internal and external attributions, the studies were based on the assumption that the hiring policy of an employee was clearly known. In today’s workplace, the assignment of at-tributes occurs when people do not know if a woman or a minority is chosen on the basis of her gender or merit and are instead left to make inferences about whether or not she is an affirmative action beneficiary. Relevant research has shown that in situations where the affirmative action policy of an organization is ambiguous and gender rarity exists (a low proportion of females in relation to males, which is typical in male-dominated industries), employees use af-firmative action policy to justify the hiring of a female employee, as though the policy was explicitly stated40. This is perhaps one of the biggest downfalls of the affirmative action policy. First created in 1967 and firmly established in public and private organizations by the Glass Ceiling Commission of the Civil Rights Act of 1991, affirmative action policies were intended to increase the number of minorities in an organization. After its continued use (and in some organizations, even after the discontinuation of its use), the assumptions that people made about the presence of minorities in organizations reverted to the concept of preferential selection. This lasting impact has therefore made rarity an influential contextual determinant of perceptual inferences.

Study 2 combines the prior research conducted on the correlation between performance of females and attributions, and the assumptions of rarity, with the prediction that:

Hypothesis 2: When both male and female employees are put in a situation where inferences are made as to the hiring/promotion of a female manager (affirmative action policy is uncertain), employees will be more likely to attribute successes of the manager-led project to external factors and failures to internal factors when it is assumed that the manager was hired based on gender (context of gender rarity) than when the manager is assumed to be hired based on merit (context of no gender rarity). This phenomena will be more likely to happen when the target is a female rather than when the target is a male.

38 Marsha B. Jacobson & Koch, W. “Women as Leaders: Performance Evaluation as a Function of Method of Leader Selection.” Organizational Behavior & Human Performance, 20 no.1 (1977), 149-157.

39 Ibid. 40 Madeline E. Heilman & Blader, S.L. “Assuming Preferential Selection When the Admissions

Policy is Unknown: The Effects of Gender Rarity.” Journal of Applied Psychology, 86 no. 2 (2001), 188-193.


Method

Participants and DesignParticipants were 115 male and female MBA students from the New York

University Stern School of Business completing a course in Negotiations and Consensus Building. Cash prizes were raffled off in exchange for their partici-pation.

The design of the study was a 2 x 2 x 2 factorial with the gender of the target (male or female), rarity of the gender of the target (male rarity, female rarity, or no rarity), and performance of the target (success or failure) as the manipulations. The “target” was the person who was evaluated in the question-naire. Participants were randomly assigned one of these eight conditions.

Procedure and Stimulus MaterialsParticipants were each given a survey packet. The packet consisted of

introductory materials, a fictitious evaluation form, and a questionnaire. The packet began with an introduction to the study, a brief, irrelevant

explanation that the purpose of the study was to measure the effectiveness of performance evaluations and the specific trend of managers to recollect examples of an employee’s performance as part of the evaluative process. Fol-lowing this, background information about a fictitious engineering company, ILS Engineering, was found. [An engineering company was chosen as it is one of the professions that are still today considered to be very “masculine” in nature, and emphasis on a male-dominated industry was needed to remove any interference from participants’ preconceptions of occupations that are more gender equitable today]. Finally, participants were introduced to the team that contained the gender rarity manipulation, described in the next section.

Following the introduction to the company was a replicated, fictitious employee performance evaluation form for either a female or male employee. It was created from real performance evaluations found in human resources departments of various organizations to make it as authentic as possible. The evaluation contained four sections: the first contained seven general appraisal factors (technical skills, quality of work, teamwork, etc.) with a 7-point scale ranging from “Exceeds Performance Expectations” to “Unacceptable.” No rat-ings were specified for each appraisal factor in order to prevent the employee’s competency from interfering with the participants’ responses – a solid black line appeared instead of a score. In this way, competency for both male and female employees was constant. The second section contained the final ma-nipulation, a description of either a successful or unsuccessful performance in that year. The third section was a rating of overall performance with a 5-point


scale ranging from “Outstanding” to “Unsatisfactory.” This was once again blocked with a solid line.

Following this information was the questionnaire.

Experimental Manipulations(1) Gender of Target: The performance evaluation was either for a female

employee (Rebecca) or a male employee (David). Each participant received only one of these evaluations, not both.

(2) Rarity of Gender of Target: Rarity was manipulated through a short description of eight team members in ILS Engineering. For the female target, there was either female rarity (one female and seven males) or no rarity (four females and four males). Likewise, for the male target, there was either male rarity (one male and seven females) or no rarity (four females and four males). In summary, each participant received one of four conditions: a female target in a condition of female rarity, a female target in a condition of no rarity, a male target in a condition of male rarity, or a male target in a condition of no rarity. The description of the team members included their name, gender, and position (all equivalently “Engineer: Geotechnology”).

(3) Performance: As part of the second section of the performance evalu-ation, participants either received a description of a successful performance or an unsuccessful performance.

The successful performance stated: This period, Rebecca (David) assisted in a project to secure an ap-propriate construction site for one of the company’s most valuable clients. She (he) was crucial in researching key information, gather-ing appropriate data, and conducting relevant studies for the proj-ect. Ultimately, she (he) was very successful in her (his) duties and contributed significantly in strengthening the company’s relationship with the client.

The unsuccessful performance stated:This period, Rebecca (David) assisted in a project to secure an ap-propriate construction site for one of the company’s most valuable clients. She (he) failed to research key information, gather appropri-ate data, and conduct relevant studies for the project. Ultimately, she (he) was very unsuccessful in her (his) duties and did not contribute to strengthening the company’s relationship with the client.


Dependent MeasuresDependent measures can be categorized into four sections. The first mea-

sured what factors participants believed played a role in the hiring of the target (education, work experience, gender, technical skills, and interviewing scales). Participants responded in accordance with a 7-point Likert Scale (small role-large role). The goal of this was to see how much participants thought the target’s gender played a role in hiring compared to the other competency fac-tors.

The second section aimed to measure internal and external attributions. The following statement contained internal attribution factors: This employee is… (1) competent, (2) does not work hard, (3) is qualified, (4) has what it takes to succeed. The following statements contained external attribution fac-tors: a) This employee is... (1) lucky and (2) has a difficult job, and b) ILS Engineering… (1) provides good resources and (2) values its employees. Par-ticipants were asked to rate the degree to which they agreed or disagree with the statement on a 7-point Likert Scale (strongly-disagree-strongly agree). In addition, participants were asked in a free response question to explain why they thought the target performed the way he or she did.

The third section measured the actions participants would take concern-ing the target. Participants were posed the question, “If you had the authority, how likely would you be to do the following for this employee?”, followed by three actions: (1) recommend for promotion, (2) delegate greater responsibili-ties, and (3) give a merit-based raise. This was asked using a 7-point Likert Scale (not very likely-very likely). It also asked participants, using a 7-point Likert Scale (worse than others-better than others), how they thought the tar-get compared to others in the team.

The final section inquired about participants’ inferences about the hir-ing policy of ILS Engineering. This was used to gauge the effects of rarity on people’s assumptions. On 7-point Likert Scales (strongly disagree-strongly agree), participants were asked how much they thought ILS Engineering’s hir-ing policies were (1) fair, (2) affirmative-action based, (3) effective, and (4) based solely on merit.


Results

Data Analysis Overview The following Analyses of Variance (ANOVAs) were conducted on each

dependent measure: (1) a 2 x 2 ANOVA was conducted using the performance and gender of target manipulations, (2) a 2 x 2 ANOVA was conducted us-ing the performance and rarity manipulations, (3) using only the data with a female target, a 2 x 2 ANOVA was conducted using the performance and rar-ity manipulations, and (4) a 2 x 2 x 2 ANOVA was conducted using all three manipulations.

Note: Significant findings that may have appeared based solely on the effect of the performance manipulation (with no interactions with the other two manipulations) were ignored based on the consideration that successful performance would naturally result in higher ratings of competency and quali-fications of the employee and more positive ratings of the company.

Factor Roles in HiringAll four ANOVA tests revealed insignificant variances among the ma-

nipulations, p > 0.10.

Internal and External Attributions The ANOVA tests revealed insignificant variances among the manipula-

tions, p > 0.10, for internal attributions. However, there were some significant findings pertaining to external attributions. Among female targets, there was a marginal effect of the female rarity x performance interaction variable F(1, 51) = 3.55, p < 0.07 on the “difficult job” external attribution. A three way ANOVA of all the data revealed a significant effect of the performance x rarity x target gender interaction variable F(1,155) = 3.83, p = 0.05 on the “lucky” external attribution.

Contrary to predictions, among female targets, those who were success-ful and rare (mean = 4.46, standard deviation = 0.78) were more likely to be attributed as having a “difficult job” than when they were in situations with no gender rarity (mean = 3.85, standard deviation = 1.21). However, women who failed and were rare (mean = 4.31, standard deviation = 1.49) were attributed as having a “difficult job” more than when they were in situations with no gender rarity (mean = 4.92, standard deviation = 1.12).

Consistent with predictions, a female who was successful (mean = 3.56, standard deviation = 0.36) was more likely to be attributed as being “lucky” than a man who was successful (mean = 2.83, standard deviation = 0.42) when they were both in situations with no gender rarity. Contrary to expectations,


however, a successful male in male rarity was more likely to be attributed as being “lucky” (mean = 3.69, standard deviation = 0.40) than a successful fe-male in female rarity (mean = 2.86, standard deviation = 0.38).

Behavior towards the TargetAll four ANOVA tests revealed insignificant variances among the ma-

nipulations, p > 0.10.

Inferences about Hiring PolicyA 2 x 2 ANOVA (rarity x performance) revealed a significant effect of

gender rarity on participants’ beliefs that the company had an affirmative ac-tion policy F(1, 51) = 5.17, p < 0.05. A 2 x 2 ANOVA (rarity x performance) of only female targets also revealed a significant effect of rarity on these partici-pants’ beliefs F(1, 51) = 10.64, p < 0.01.

Inconsistent with prior research about the assumptions made about gen-der rarity, participants were more likely to assume an affirmative action hiring policy when a male was rare (mean = 3.92, standard deviation = 1.22) than when a female was rare (mean = 3.12, standard deviation = 1.35). Similarly, participants were also more likely to assume an affirmative action hiring pol-icy when a female was not rare (mean = 4.38, standard deviation = 1.42) than when a female was rare (mean = 3.12, standard deviation = 1.34).

DiscussionThe results of Study 2 provide varied conclusions with respect to Hy-

pothesis 2 predictions. They do not provide significant evidence to support either hiring assumptions based on gender rarity and performance or behaviors toward female and male targets. In support of the predictions, when both gen-ders were in equality, successful females were attributed more often as being “lucky” (an external attribute) than successful males – this is consistent with the prediction that a woman’s success is attributed to aspects outside of her control and unrelated to her competency. However, there were contradictions among the results: women who were successful and in gender rarity were at-tributed more with having a “difficult job,” when it was expected that respon-dents would believe she had an “easy job” and thus was successful. Also, when looking at only rare females, those who were successful were attributed as being less lucky than their successful male counterparts in male rarity.

The lack of conclusive evidence to support Hypothesis 2 and the various inconsistencies can be attributed to two scenarios: (1) The study materials may not have provided enough information for the manipulations to have a strong influence on responses. Along the same lines, experimental conditions may


have prevented respondents from honestly answering the questions or fully immersing themselves in the scenario. (2) The insignificant findings could also indicate possible changes in perceptions over the thirty years following the research of Garland & Price, 1977, and Jacobson & Koch, 1977. Even leaving aside the rarity manipulation, there were no significant differences in the as-signment of internal or external attributes (with the exception of a successful female in gender equality being attributed as “lucky” more than a successful male in gender equality), or behaviors toward the male and female targets. The increasing female representation in the workplace and in higher education, and the changing beliefs about the roles of women in society, could be caus-ing a decrease in the differences in evaluations of men and women. It can also indicate a shift in the general attitude toward women in management. Prior research has shown that a generally positive attitude toward female managers in the workplace can increase internal attributions of female success.41 How-ever, very recent research suggesting negative attributional rationalization of women’s success in mixed-sex dyads42 and personal derogation of women who are successful in male gender-typed tasks43 seems to suggest that this change has not fully occurred.

In support of this, there is evidence that seems to suggest that the pre-sumptions of the rarity manipulation underlying the structure and design of the experiment may have been inaccurate. More specifically, the presumptions of rarity were based on the inference that female rarity causes inclinations to-wards believing in the affirmative action hiring of the “token” female and that gender equality would cause less inclinations toward this belief. This was wit-nessed in previous research.44 The statistical findings from Study 2, however, demonstrated an opposite effect, where affirmative action policy was assumed in the situation of male rarity more than female rarity, and it was assumed in the situation of female equality more than female rarity. The assumptions that participants were making were, therefore, not what was previously predicted, probably because of another determining context that was not examined. The research of Heilman and Blader, 2001, was conducted in the context of accep-

41 Arlene Eskilson & Wiley, M.G. “The Best Teacher: Mediating Effects of Experience with Employed Women on Men Managers’ Responses to Subordinate Mistakes.” Sex Roles, 34 (1996), 237-252.

42 Madeline E. Heilman & Haynes, M.C. “No Credit Where Credit is Due: Attributional Rationalization of Women’s Success in Male-female Teams.” Journal of Applied Psychology, 90 (2005), 905-916.

43 Madeline E. Heilman, Wallen, A.S., Fuchs, D., & Tamkins, M.M. “Penalties for Success: Reactions to Women who Succeed at Male Tasks.” Journal of Applied Psychology, 89 (2004), 416-427.

44 Madeline E. Heilman & Blader, S.L. “Assuming Preferential Selection When the Admissions Policy is Unknown: The Effects of Gender Rarity.” Journal of Applied Psychology, 86 no. 2 (2001), 188-193.


tances into an educational institution, whereas this study was conducted in the context of hiring into a corporate company within a male-dominated profes-sional field, engineering. In our society, the use of affirmative action policies are widely accepted and publicly acknowledged in educational institutions. However, these policies are quite ambiguous and unknown when dealing with private, corporate organizations – for example, there can be corporations that market diversity measures to retain public support in the spirit of political cor-rectness, but they may not adhere to actual representation of minority groups. Therefore, whereas in an educational context the small representation of fe-males is likely to be seen as preferential selection, in a corporate context the same small representation of females is not seen so much as preferential selec-tion but probably as more of a neglect to actually hire more females. When there is only one man in an organization where one would expect to be all men, it is not surprising that participants would assume that the reason there is this discrepancy is because those women were hired based on preferential selection. This is especially true in a field like engineering where gaps in gen-der representation are common knowledge. This finding not only indicates the impact that context can have on the assumption of preferential or merit-based hiring, but it also indicates that gender equality does not necessarily decrease the assumption of affirmative action policies. In other words, even when there is gender equality compared to female rarity, employees could still be inclined to assume preferential hiring.

This finding can be used to explain why there were inconsistencies with the “difficult job” and “lucky” external attributions. A part of the hypothesis was that unsuccessful females in gender equality would be attributed as having a “difficult job” more than an unsuccessful female in gender rarity. The fact that the evidence pointed to the contrary may demonstrate that gender equality rather than gender rarity was associated with preferential selection. The same is true for the “lucky” attribute: a successful male in male rarity was more likely to be attributed as being “lucky” than a female in female rarity–there may have been an association between female rarity and merit-based hiring, believing that the target woman must have been really competent in order to be hired into an engineering company. Therefore, they were less likely to ex-ternally attribute her success. Of course, this inference is made based on the assumption that the statistically significant finding about preferential hiring holds true and the experimental manipulations were influential–this assump-tion still needs to be proven more conclusively in future research.

In conclusion, the discrepancy between this study and other related aca-demic research prompts further research into the assumptions that are made about preferential and merit-based hiring with respect to gender rarity and the


context in which the hiring takes place. It is important to note that although these findings about the assumptions of hiring policy were found, participants did not significantly differ in their responses to how much they thought that gender played a role in the hiring of the target employee. This discrepancy may be attributable to a social desirability bias and hesitancy in directly point-ing out the role of gender in the hiring of a specific person, but a comfort in talking about hiring policies of the general company. Nevertheless, the former findings (if proven in future research outside of the lab) may very well indi-cate that, years after the first implementation of affirmative action policies, the workforce would assume increased representation of traditional minority groups, and that the absence of this significant representation could be, in es-sence, a sign of a lack of preferential selection within the organization.

General DiscussionThese two studies have revealed important points about the consequences

of contextual determinants surrounding both the perceiver and the target. Study 1 demonstrated that rarity of female perceivers, by itself, can nega-

tively influence their perceptions of how female managers must act in an or-ganization relative to male managers, which adds to their feelings of distress and the constant need to prove themselves. Rarity can also lead to the adoption of agentic behaviors, which may be thought to be necessary to be on a more equal level with males, but can lead to a severe backlash.45 But, it is not just the gender rarity of the perceiver that is important; it is also the culture that they are in, which can be influenced by how the organization markets its diversity measures. It is one thing to hire minorities to avoid legal repercussions. This imparts to employees the idea of preferential selection (as demonstrated by participants’ relative receptivity to hiring a female employee with no compe-tency information); this process is viewed by many to be rather unfair and can cause repercussions for the “preferred group.” It is altogether another thing to impart to employees the competitive advantages that minority groups bring to the organization in terms of the conglomeration of values, approaches, experi-ences, ideas, and thinking behaviors that lead to better decision making46 and increased creativity.47 This provides a more equitable environment to employ-ees and a fairer process based on competency. The emphasis on competitive

45 Francis Flynn. “Too Tough, Too Soon: Familiarity and the Backlash Effect.” Revision under review at Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 2007.

46 W.E. Watson, Kumar, K., & Michaelson, L.K. “Cultural Diversity’s Impact on Interaction Process and Performance: Comparing Homogeneous and Diverse Task Groups.” Academy of Management Journal, 36 (1993), 590 – 602.

47 Taylor H. Cox & Blake, S. “Managing Cultural Diversity: Implications for Organizational Competitiveness.” Executive, 5 (1991), 45 – 50.


advantage can help mitigate the repercussions that women face when they choose to adopt their agentic or communal behavior. It can also influence their overall positive encouragement of similar minority groups to join the orga-nizations. This influence of justification diversity measures is very important because even if a company, for example, does not have complete control of gender equality because not enough members of the minority group are apply-ing for positions, it has tremendous control over the culture that they create for the organization. It can be an effective tool for managers to influence percep-tions and behavior.

Study 2 inadvertently revealed an interesting point about rarity of the perceived target: gender equality in a stereotypically male company is not necessarily, by itself, going to suppress the assumption that females are hired because of preferential selection. An overabundance of women in male-typical jobs can just as likely, if not even more likely, suggest affirmative action hiring compared to female rarity. This reinforces the point that organizations must do more than manipulate minority representation; perhaps if the target was within an explicit culture based on meritocracy, inferences about affirmative action hiring would have been decreased. The development of a culture that supports and believes in the intrinsic advantages of diversity can perhaps make this dif-ference.

These studies are not absent of limitations, however. First of all, they were both conducted in an experimental rather than a real-life setting and measured intended rather than actual behaviors. The effects that were measured pertain to very socially sensitive issues, and many behaviors that people think they will exhibit are not ones that they do end up exhibiting. In addition, many em-ployees may exhibit behaviors and attitudes when they are put into actual situ-ations of rarity, affirmative action culture, etc., but they are not able to predict these intended behaviors. In responding to the reasons of women’s preferences of female managers over male managers, Study 1 did not compare the percep-tions of female managers to that of male managers, but it would be interesting to explore this in further studies. Finally, although similar patterns were found between how a female employee perceives the agentic and communal behav-ior of a female target and the subsequent masculine and feminine behaviors she chooses to adopt, it does not establish an exact causal relationship. In other words, it does not confirm that a woman chooses certain behaviors because of the behaviors she sees in a successful manager. This may also be of interest for future studies. Nevertheless, the statistically significant findings found in these experiments do provide an indication of the behaviors that may be exhibited, and gives way to conduct future research in an actual work setting to solidify the findings further. Therefore, these results should be seen as a strong indica-


tive start rather than an end to an area that continues to be highly relevant in today’s diverse workplace.

In the larger scheme, these studies shed light on the ongoing debate over the use of affirmative action policies in the workplace. Increasing the numeri-cal representation of women in male-dominated industries (whether through affirmative action or competency-based hiring) inadvertently fuels implicit sex-based discrimination in the workplace and evokes false assumptions about preferential hiring treatment – the use of affirmative action in many non-ste-reotypical scenarios is a commonly adopted assumption in our society. How-ever, these studies show that organizations can counteract this by coupling gender equality with a culture that values diversity for the intrinsic benefits that it brings. This may potentially decrease negative behaviors and attitudes of perceivers and increase positive perceptions of traditionally underrepre-sented targets.


Appendix AAdaptation of Traditional-Egalitarian Sex Role Scale (TESR)

Larsen & Long, 1988

ItemOriginal

Part-Whole Correlation

1. The man should be more responsible for the economic support of the family than the woman.* 0.48

2. The belief that women cannot make as good supervisors or executives as men is a myth. 0.48

3. Having a job is just as important for a wife as it is for her husband. 0.64

4. In groups that have both male and female members, it is more appropriate that leadership positions be held by males.* 0.54

5. Having a challenging job or career is as important as being a wife and mother. 0.56

6. Men make better leaders.* 0.52

7. Almost any woman is better off in her home than in a job or profession.* 0.60

8. A woman’s place is in the home.* 0.63

9. The role of teaching in the elementary schools belongs to women.* 0.63

10. A man who has chosen to stay at home and be a house-husband is not less masculine. 0.48

*These items were reverse coded.

Items were responded to on a 5-point Likert Scale (strongly disagree-strongly agree). The higher the score, the more egalitarian the views about sex roles.


Appendix BStereotyped Beliefs about Women Managers Scale

Moore, S., Grunberg, L. & Greenberg, E., 2004

Women managers have their ideas challenged more often than do 1. managerial men.

Women managers have to perform much better than male mangers 2. in order to succeed.

Women mangers must behave in a typically masculine way in order 3. to be taken seriously.

Compared to male managers, female managers must continually 4. prove themselves.

Women managers have their work judged more critically than do 5. men managers.

Compared to male managers, female managers are often uncom-6. fortable in taking credit for their successes.

Items were responded to on a 5-point Likert Scale (strongly disagree-strongly agree). The higher the score, the greater the belief in the disparity between the performance evaluation differences of managerial men and women.


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perceptions of female managers

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